1979 – Pioneer 11 becomes the first Human spacecraft to visit Saturn. This success is the culmination of 22 years of work to visit and survey those planets that had been seen by Humans prior to the invention of the telescope (TNG: "Loud As A Whisper", okudagram)

2038 – NASA loses contact with the Charybdis following a failure in the ship's telemetry system. It was later learned that the Charybdis was contaminated by an alien lifeform which infected and killed all personnel except mission commander Stephen G. Richey (TNG: "The Royale")